Thomas enjoys prologue success

Britain's Geraint Thomas claimed victory in the prologue of the Tour de Romandie as rain hit the hopes of a number of his rivals.

The Team Sky Rider set a time of three minutes 29.43 seconds on the 3.34km time trial through Lausanne, finishing over four seconds clear of Radioshack-Nissan's Giacomo Nizzolo in second.

Thomas' team-mate and 2008 prologue winner Mark Cavendish was third, while fellow Briton Bradley Wiggins - another Team Sky rider - finished in 11th place, his rain-affected run nine seconds off the pace.

Defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC) was also a victim of the late rain and finished almost 20 seconds behind Thomas' benchmark time.

With Australia's Michael Rogers finishing in fourth place, Team Sky were left celebrating three riders in the top four, and Thomas was delighted with the start made to the six-day event.

"It's a nice little win," Thomas said on teamsky.com. "The team told me I was racing here about 10 days ago so it was great to come over. I always knew that I'd be up there."

Thomas insisted, however, that the wet Swiss conditions should not detract from his performance.

"Fortunately with the weather conditions it played into my hands a bit but there was only really one corner," he said. "There's only so much time you can lose in one corner."

Thomas, part of Britain's Olympic gold medal-winning track pursuit team in 2008, added that his focus for the rest of the week will be to support Cavendish and Wiggins in their respective battles.

"For myself now it's purely a team role," he said. "I'll be there to help Cav in the sprints wherever they come and Bradley is going for the general classification as well, so I'll be there to help (them) wherever I can."